Welcome! You may read here my papers I am working on nowadays. Any comment would make me happy and grateful.

Monday, 26 December 2011

Blogoshpere 19 December – 25 December

Last week
there was a blooming Early Modern activity in the Blogosphere, and much less
posts in the Digital Humanities sphere. Within Early Modern Studies I read
interesting posts about Christmas habits, a meeting of the oldest Shakespeare
society, Shakespeare’s sources and also about takes on Early Modern theatre
history (Richard Burbage, and plays published and decorated with marginalia).
Furthermore there was a post featuring Kepler and a supernova in 1604, and another one an Early Modern pickpocket. Within
the Digital Humanities set there is only one post, that of Mathew Kirschenbaum
about his new project and a request. So happy reading again, and also Merry
Christmas (time)!

Early Modern Studies:

Sylvia Morris’s post, “Elizabethan Christmas: carols” presents Tudor carol singing
issues: notes, customs, lyrics, atmosphere, pictures, and through clicking
collections of songs. This is a great Christmas post! Here is a stanza from one
of the lyrics for all to enjoy:

At Christmas in
Christ we rejoice and be glad,

As only of whom our
comfort is had:

At Christmas we joy
altogether with mirth

For his sake that
joyed us all with his birth.

Melissa Leon in her “What
makes a good Shakespearian?” reports on the 866th
meeting of The Shakespeare Club, Stratford-upon-Avon
(founded in 1823). The report includes an audio recorded, 45-minute interview
with Stanley Wells about his career. It is worth reading the post and also
listening to the talk with Stanley Wells.

Liz Dollimore continuing her series about Shakespeare’s sources relates 2 Henry IV with Machiavelli in her “Shakespeare’s Sources – Henry IV part ii.” The Prince is rather a source
for ideas than verbatim quotation, but still the link between the two works is
conclusive. The idea that connects the two works is the evergreen political
issue of foreign military campaigns.

Holger Syme announces his outstanding project in his “Well-Read Plays I.” Let me quote him to summarize
the project on annotations. “Among other things, I’m looking at the kinds of
annotations early modern readers left in plays. And in order to build a truly
representative account, I’m trying to produce a comprehensive database of such
annotations in as many books in as many libraries as possible.” Good luck for
this important project!

Holger Syme did not only announce the project of presenting “a few
examples of printed plays that have been annotated in a way that suggests the
reader had performance of one kind or another in mind,” but also started the
series. This time in his “Well-Read Plays II” he writes about a copy of the anonymous No-body, and Some-body (1606), of Two
Merry Milkmaids (by “J. C.;” 1620), a copy of Ben Jonson’s Every
Man Out of His Humour with 18th-century
marginalia, a copy of Thomas Dekker’s 1602 Blurt Master-Constable and
of Thomas Middleton’s The Puritan of 1607. This post and the series
are relevant for historians of the theatre and of the book.

In another post, “Shakespearean Mythbusting III: Richard Burbage” Holger
Syme argues that there is no evidence that Shakespeare created Richard III’s
character for Richard Burbage, and adds that it is more likely that Augustine
Philips was Gloucester in Richard III, while Burbage acted Richmond’s role. Conjectural this may be, yet
this presents a real alternative to the well-established faith in Richard
Burbage.

William Eamon’s post on “Kepler and the Star of
Bethlehem” presents
an interesting case relating to science and religion. “On the evening of the 17th of
October 1604, as the clouds finally lifted over the city of Prague to reveal a clear night sky, the
German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed a new star in the feet of the
Constellation of Serpens.” This observation would have been interesting on its
own account but Kepler was not satisfied with this, but claimed that this was
the star that led the Three Kings to Christ’s cradle.

Nick in his
“The Christmas Cutpurse” makes a fascinating case about how everyday
acts found their way into pop-, and not so pop-culture. He presents John
Selman’s, a pickpocket’s case, who was caught when stealing a purse, was
imprisoned and was sentenced to death. He then popped up in Ben Jonson’s Love
Restored “as the character of ‘the Christmas Cutpurse’.” He then
seemingly appeared in other works as well: “he bookseller Thomas Hall registered
the title of The araignment of Iohn Selman(London, 1612), printed by W. Hall,
on the day after the execution. This was a standard pamphlet account of a
crime, trial and execution, including a version of Selman’s gallows speech. The
printer George Eld produced for the bookseller and ballad specialist John
Wright a broadside titled The Captaine Cut-purse, also sold under
an alternate, less catchy title of The arrainement, condemnation, and
excution of the grand [--] Iohn Selman (both London, 1612). Two other
ballads about Selman, which do not survive, were also registered with the
Stationers’ Company.”

Digital Humanities:

Matthew
Kirschenbaum in his “My Literary History of Word Processing: Your Assitance Needed” announces that he is in the middle of “
writing a book entitled Track Changes: A Literary History of Word
Processing.” This book is about “the moment at which large numbers of
literary writers began making the transition from typewriters to word
processors and personal computers (late 1970s, early 1980s).” For this
enterprise he would like to request any piece of information that pertains to
this topic, from anecdotes to anything that others think relevant. I hope he
will be given a hand in this project.